Well, I guess I'd say to stick with your own gender, because you know that better than the other one, but I myself am writing a story with a female protagonist (I'm a guy) mostly because I wanted to make something a little different, to spice up the formula. When you read my story, you'll know what I mean by "formula"...
How to write women? Not to be sexist, but there are differences in the ways men and women talk. I'm not saying that all men talk one way and all women talk another way, but somehow in most books I can tell if the speaker is male of female without actually seeing a name or description. Is there another post I can find for this? Are there differences in adjectives, or sentence structure, or just point of view and feelings on issues? Some combination of multiple factors? Help would be appreciated.
Well, women tend to be more touchy/affectionate with our friends than guys are with theirs, and the dialogue is different. As for mindsets, goals in life, worldview, stances on issues, etc then no, they aren't that different. There are plenty of domestic/nurturing guys and aggressive/driven women. My advice to you is to go to a place where you can observe men and women alike in a non-creeperish way (a food court in a crowded mall, for example, or public transit) and take note of the differences in how they interact.
Watch, people-watch and pay attention to how the women you meet in everyday life act. Main thing is to make them real, not caricatures of how you think we females sound and act. There have been multiple threads on this topic, a quick forum search should reveal them.
Women are alittle bit more emotional then Men. (That's a good thing!) So yes dialogue will most likely be more different then when a Male speaks. Almost all the time you'll notice the difference. I like it when the Author makes female characters reasonable but not cliche. Not all women are there to be saved like they are some hopeless person. And they aren't out there to be treated like meat either. Ive put some books down just because the female character is looked upon as needy all the time, hence Twilight. Bella is a cliche character and not all women are like that. Not all female character strive to survive because the Male character defends them all the time while they look hopeless. I absolutely HATE that when a first person book is like that. It's so sexist. And yes, a guy is saying this. Alot of Women are very independent, and they do not like to be treated like you own them. Ive noticed some guys act like that and it makes me sick. Especially when i read history books about the Renascence times in Italy and such about how they considered women as dumb and unintelligent. I always get so pissed reading that. Women deserve to be treated like human beings. Not tools. Not slaves. Sorry if im off-topic, i should seroiusly stop talking now lol. I just needed to get that of my chest. I know your not trying to be sexist, but im just explaining my opinion about haha sorry if im offtopic. :redface:
My knees start knocking when I see a thread with a title like this... None of your characters should be stereotypes. If you think in stereotypes, nobody will give a toss about your characters and anything they have to say. Also, men are just as emotional as women, they just express it in different ways. I don't think this needs to be spelled out.
How to write women? Like this: double-u oh em ee en I hope that solves your problem. Look forward to reading your bestseller.
First I'd like to say that in all my time on the Internet I still have to go the the poster's icon or profile to know who is and who isn't female. Sometimes I'm very surprised since the posts come across as what is usually considered very male, you know, analytical, detached and unemotional. So if indeed you can tell just by reading a person's writing all the time, then I would suspect extrasensory perception. Stereotyping is generally frowned upon but that doesn't mean that as a writer we have to religiously avoid all characteristics considered stereotypes. Why? Well, because there definitely are real people who do fit into the stereotypical categories. It might not be popular, or politically correct to depict them that way, but they do exist and an author might rightfully consider one of these essential to the plot. Women? Well, there definitely is what I have heard women themselves refer to as girly-girl behavior and mannerisms which can be used to convey that stereotype. Marilyn Monroe made a career of it as did Jane Mansfield. So I would suggest that watching several Marilyn Monroe films and taking notes on the way she behaves and just what it is that makes her stand out from other less girly-girl women will provide you with the tools necessary for your purpose. On the other hand if you can so readily identify a writer by her female mannerisms as you claim you can, then that shouldn't be necessary. In fact, it is a bit paradoxical. Please read CL Moor's "Doorway Into Time" and "No Woman Born" and tell me how I was supposed to know that a woman wrote them. I couldn't. I knew it was a woman after I took time later to read Isaac Asimov 's intros to these stories in one of his anthologies. In fact, she and her husband became a famous Sci fi team and people couldn't tell who wrote what sometimes or what parts were his and what parts were her's.
You need to look at *your* female character - how would *she* talk? Is she ultra-feminine, more 'rough and tumble', somewhere in between? Know your character - then you'll know not only how she talks but how she acts and how she reacts.
Okay, there's so much diversity of personalities in terms on intra and inter gender that we can probably assume that there isn't any actual difference. We could probably quotes tons statistics or studies or w/e that claim that men "are actually more sensitive" or "men are more emotionally robust" but there's probably little point. So, assuming that men and women have the potential to have equal characteristics in all areas, what does change is societal norms, the perception of a society/culture, etc, and this is where the effect comes in, and what possibly necessitates a difference in the way you write one of the genders, in this case women. You have to consider what's popular. You can get butch women, definitely. But if you're writing a romance novel, is a very macho-type women going to be popular? You'd probably find femininity in this instance is going to sell better. Whereas, for example, it could be possible that a very macho, perhaps cold male protagonist in a love story could be popular if it's fulfilling a kind of anti-hero role and the female protagonist "brings out the good" in him. You can attempt to break the mould a little if you think you can write a more unconventional female, but consider the genre you're writing in and whether this unconventional female template is actually going to be popular. I think today, female characters that can be strong and/or aggressive without sacrificing femininity are probably among the most popular, everygirl types. Someone that springs right to mind is actually Misty from Pokemon. Remember that your character's personality is going to define their thoughts and feelings towards external phenomena, so there isn't really examples of the type of feelings a female might have. If you have a macho, tough girl in terms of personality, she might not even bat an eyelid at how beautiful the sunset is. As I said though, in most cases female characters in books will follow societal norms a little (or a lot), and consequently are probably going to have a more feminine attitude. Society likes to think of women, even strong women, as being capable of more emotion, perhaps being maturer at a younger age, etc, so when people write females in novels, there's a good chance they'll follow (perhaps without even thinking about it much) these parameters, and so the females characters these authors produce might be more softly spoken, talk/act a little less vulgur, or act a little more level-headed, and so on; it's likely to be more subtle these days. I guess it's essentially what's becoming the norm. There's nothing to stop you writing a complete damsel in distress; it's probably realistic too, there are plenty of girls like that. But would it be popular? You'd probably find a stronger, more independent, subtly feminine character would go down better amongst the readers.
Sure, we could all use a dyke. look at all that water. To a great extent gender identity is established by society. Those of us with identity or disphoria issues simply don't agree, for what ever reason, with society's identity definition. A woman in Classical Athens would have been a different person from a woman in Classical Sparta, and I'd wager both would be different from a Minoan woman just three-hundred years earlier, or an Egyptian just a thousand years earlier than that. And then there is Rome and the Church she built. The women of pre-classical Greek society were powerful, even governors, with or without the approval of their men. Take that to modern times: A man born in New York will have a different idea of what a 'man' is supposed to be than one born in Los Angeles, Sidney, London, or Tel Aviv. Then, the Urban model will be different from the suburban model, will be different from the country farmer who can plow and fish and find something to fix with the wrong tools. While a wrestling match between a red neck and a homeboy from Harlem would be interesting, I bet they'd call each other queer [Def: anyone you see as not fitting your idea of manhood the way you do] before the match began. Then, the blood, the pain, the embarrassing stains, and then the beer and the never ending argument about who really won that one. Oh, and then they'd be friends for the rest of their natural lives.
That may be your perspective. Mine so far is different (in spite of my shorter tenure on this earth..). You cannot always categorically say 'a man's brain works like this', and 'a woman's brain works like that', when how people think and act is based on so many factors. We are individuals, but yet more unites rather than divides us imo. Thinking we can be boxed into two predictable groups of uniformity is a horribly depressive thought. A good writer can write anything, I agree. Otherwise we can all keep journals and only write about our own lives.
I find it more difficult writing about the same sex. I'm as stereotypically girly as they come -- everything is pink or animal print (eg: phone/bedding); countless pairs of shoes; adore boy bands; spend way too much on clothes and make-up, etc -- but writing about a female character is ten times more irritating than breaking a nail. I find writing male or transgender characters much easier and I don't get annoyed with them like I do with female MCs. But I have many more male friends than female, and it's been this way since I was 11~12yo, so it doesn't surprise me at all that I find it easier to get inside a male character's head.
